A Comparative Study On The Two Chinese Versions Of The Color Purple From The Perspective Of Feminist Translation

With the "cultural turn" in translation studies from the1980s, traditional translation thought and translation theory have been challenged and queried. Translation has not been viewed as simple transfer from the source language to the target language any more but from the perspective of post-modernism. With the propagation and development of feminist movements and thought, feminism has exerted significant influence on translation studies and the gender perspective of translation studies has been attached great importance to. Thus, the combination of feminism and translation study has created a new viewpoint of translation study and opened up a new way for traditional translation theory. To make women be seen and heard in the translation, feminist translators have proposed feminist strategies to rewrite the original text and emphasize the subjectivity and status of female translators.Not only feminist translation does refer to simple translation of language, but also it pays more emphasis on female discourse right and translator’s subjectivity. It studies translation from the perspective of gender study, that is, it underlines the gender differences between male and female translators and endeavors to uncover the relationship between the gender difference and translation. In Western feminist translators’ viewpoints, translation is more a process of recreating than simple language translation, which is closely bound up with the translator’s ideology, cultural background and so forth. To make a further study on gender consciousness of translator in the translation from the perspective of feminism and analyze the connection between translator’s gender consciousness and translation practice, the thesis chooses two Chinese versions of The Color Purple, the masterpiece of a celebrated American black woman writer Alice Walker, as research objective to demonstrate the gender consciousness of different genders of translators embodied in the translation practice and the translation strategies adopted by them respectively.After the introduction of feminism and feminist translation theory, the thesis conducts a systematic comparative study on the two representative Chinese versions of The Color Purple. Many examples are chosen from the original text and translated texts to analyze the different aspects in the novel in detail:images, feelings, personalities of the female characters and the features of different translators as well as the strategies they adopted in the translating process, especially the feminist consciousness embodied in their versions. Differences between the two translated versions are summarized after comparison. The conclusion is that the feminist consciousness of female translator Tao Jie is more intensive than the male translator Yang Renjing. The female translator pays more attention to the details presenting feminism, is more sensitive to women’s feelings and more aware of using feminist strategies to manifest her feminist consciousness.